Sunday, October 30, 2011

My last few silver purchases have been with a small dealer in my area. When I say small dealer, I mean small in that he is a one-man show. He travels around to local and regional coin shows, rents a booth and conducts business. Maybe I could get better deals elsewhere but Artie the dealer is as honest as the day is long and we trust each other.

Artie and I have a mutual friend that believes he missed the boat on profiting in silver and refuses to invest. The trouble is he has been saying that since silver was in the mid-teens. So he really did miss the boat then and he is still missing it. He has to stop puting things off. One thing our friend does like to do is spend time at the casino in our area. If he would take just half of his gambling funds and invest in some silver, he could be accumulating some real assets. I mean $40 will maybe get him 5-10 minutes of "fun" on a tight slot machine. With that same $40 (or less) our friend could become a full-fledged silver investor. It's all a matter of priorities and a little future planning.

My most recent purchase from Artie was a small amount of Brilliant Uncirculated (BU) Ben Franklin half-dollars (1948-1963). These are beautiful coins and, since they are uncirculated, each coin contains .3617 troy ounces of silver. With spot silver hovering around $35 per ounce, the intrinsic value (the value of the silver content only) of each coin is about $12.66. These coins would be worth a little more because they are uncirculated and in beautiful condition. Silver half-dollars that have been in circulation are considered to contain .3575 ounces of silver due to the wear factor. Based on the current spot price of silver, I paid a healthy premium for these half-dollars. But based on where I think silver is going, I won't be losing money on them. You can find out more about different silver coins at Silver Investing Guide and Silver Investing Simplified.

It can be confusing and frustrating trying to decide what to invest in these days. There are lots of conflicting stories on what is a safe investment. If you decide not to invest in precious metals and stay in other markets, I respect your decision. Just use good judgement and some good old common sense. Those that don't can expect the following...

When a person with money meets a person with experience,the person with the experience gets the money andthe person with the money gets the experience.

1 comment:

Nice post, Ive started investing in silver 18 months ago just before the huge infux, then drop in value. I often wondered if I had missed the boat. The line about your friend wasting his money gambling but refusing to invest in silver, reminds me that if I had taken all the money I wasted in my life and invested it in silver I would be considerably better off today.